The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra has specialized in multifaceted concerts in recent seasons, sometimes featuring two soloists and sometimes placing enough content within a two-hour concert to provide sufficient variety for an entire season.

Look no farther for an example than the Phil's program at Macky Auditorium on Saturday.

While music director Michael Butterman will open and close the second program of the current season with works by Johannes Brahms, these pieces frame a new composition — with the composer as soloist — whose presentation itself has multiple layers and media.

On top of that, the Boulder Chorale will join the orchestra in a celebration of that organization's 50th anniversary and of the frequent collaborations between the groups. The chorale will open the concert with the 1871 "Schicksalslied" ("Song of Destiny"), one of four 10-15-minute choral/orchestral works by Brahms that are notoriously tricky to program.

"We had already decided to do the Second Symphony this year," Butterman said, "and we felt it was important to celebrate this milestone with the chorale, so it was a natural fit to open the concert with the 'Schicksalslied.' "

The performance will mark the debut of new Boulder Chorale music director, Vicki Burrichter, and simultaneously will open the choir's own concert season.

Vicki Burrichter will make her debut as music director of the Boulder Chorale at Macky. (Courtesy photo)

The piece, which sets a German text by Friedrich Hölderlin, will begin with a serene picture of the gods and their abode, but then will contrast this with a grim, bleak portrait of humanity and its fate. Brahms famously circumvents the poet's message by returning to the beautiful "divine" music in an orchestral postlude.

As for the Second Symphony, Butterman said it provides a core canonical masterwork to anchor the concert, but that it is a natural companion to both the "Schicksalslied" and the world premiere at the center of the concert, "Portraits in Season" by Denver-based composer and pianist Charles Denler.

"The piece by Charles is heavily informed by Henry David Thoreau's impressions of nature," Butterman said. "Brahms also drew inspiration and sustenance from the natural world, and that pervades the Second Symphony."

Sometimes known as Brahms's "Pastoral" (a counterpart to Beethoven's Sixth), the Second, composed in 1877, is expansive and atmospheric. Its vast, leisurely first movement and introspective, profound second are followed by a rustic, varied third movement and a glowing, jubilant finale.

Denler described Brahms as the most important influence on his symphonic scores and expressed delight his work is being paired with that composer.

An Emmy Award winner, Denler has primarily worked in film and television scores, but he recently composed a symphony, "Portraits of Colorado," for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. That large, ambitious work is the subject of an upcoming PBS documentary. It also was used for a highly successful advertising campaign promoting tourism in the state.

Denler said "Portraits in Season" is scored more modestly, and at 30 minutes, is smaller in scale. He approached Phil executive director Kevin Shuck when the piece was about halfway done, and Butterman liked the audio samples.

"I continued to write with the Phil in mind," Denler said. "It's an intimate sound that is reflective of the content and why I wrote the piece. It's music that you could take with you on a walk or a hike."

The content itself is a journey through the seasons, inspired by the writings of Thoreau. As for the role of the piano, whose part Denler will play in the role of guest soloist, he said it is a "piano-driven piece" and the orchestra follows the piano's lead. But neither Denler nor Butterman would commit to the word "concerto" when describing it.

Charles Denler wrote "Portraits in Season,"which will make its world premiere at Macky Auditorium, with the Boulder Philharmonic in mind. (Courtesy photo)

"The piano is me," Denler said. "It's me walking through the seasons of life, and a metaphor for life itself. As I get older, I reflect more on each season."

There are 11 movements. A six-movement suite, including a prologue, will take the audience through the four seasons for about 20 of the 30 minutes. Then a series of four short piano variations, each associated with a season, will lead to the finale.

It was Butterman's idea to add visual images to the work, something that has frequently been done when pieces are premiered with the Phil.

Butterman approached Colorado's celebrity photographer, John Fielder, who met with Denler and provided him with a set of photos.

"John listened to the music and seemed more than happy to jump on board," Denler said. "As somebody who writes regularly for the screen, the idea of projecting images while playing live music makes sense to me."

Denler emphasized that this presentation will be intensely choreographed. He, as the composer, selected the photographs to accompany very specific passages of music. It is thus quite different from Fielder's collaboration with the Colorado Music Festival this past summer, in which his photographs accompanied Beethoven and Sibelius masterworks.

"My assistant and student, Nicholas Webber, has a marked score indicating when and where each slide should come," Denler said. "He is as much a part of the performance as any member of the orchestra. He actually brings it all together, and the synchronization is vital."

In addition to Fielder's photos, the presentation will include quotes from Thoreau that describe the inspiration for each movement.

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